R' JR:
When one is physically distant from a friend who is sitting shiva, as a
general rule, is it better to (pick one) call, text, or email during the
shiva period? Or, is it better to wait until you actually see the person
again?
-----------------
See Igros Moshe OC IV:40.11, where he talks about nichum aveilim via the
phone. It seems clear to me that he's saying that someone who is unable to
visit in person still has a mitzvah of nichum; if so, then it makes sense to
say that whatever of the modalities you suggest would create the most
nechamah (and it may be different from person to person) should be the one
used.
KT,
MYG
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20190123/47050cdf/attachment-0001.html>

?When one is physically distant from a friend who is sitting shiva, as a
general rule, is it better to (pick one) call, text, or email during the
shiva period? Or, is it better to wait until you actually see the person
again??
I always thought as someone paying the shiva call (or, rather, as well he
caller emailer), that telephone calls were better. But I saw a few
discussions on FB about this and the people who had recently sat shiva
almost unanimously said emails were better because calls often came at
times when it was not convenient to speak.
Joseph
Sent from my iPhone

From https://ohr.edu/this_week/insights_into_halacha/5477
One of, if not the most pivotal event in Jewish history, Mattan Torah, is
prominently featured in this week?s parasha, Parashas Yisro. The fourth of
the Aseres HaDibros, is the exhortation to remember and keep the Shabbos
properly. In fact, the Gemara (Pesachim 106a) teaches us that ?Zachor es
Yom HaShabbos lekadsho?[1]<https://ohr.edu/5477#_edn1> is not
only the basis of our obligation to make Kiddush upon Shabbos?s entrance on
Friday night, but also a support for making Kiddush on Shabbos day.
Yet, it seems that this is one of the most common halachic realms where we
actively see different minhagim manifested. One family stands when making
Kiddush, another sits, while a third does some sort of
combination.[2]<https://ohr.edu/5477#_edn1>
Additionally, another?s ?minhag? preference might just depend on how tired
or hungry one is. However, aside for the proper posturical preferences on
how to make Kiddush, there are actual variations inherent in the words and
actions of the Kiddush itself.
Please see the above URL for more.
I may have missed it, but I do not see any mention of making kiddush on Shabbos day using a shot glass of whiskey. YL
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20190124/393af999/attachment-0001.html>

Israel exports many fruits and vegetables abroad and the question is what
to do about possible terumot and maaserot
Rabbi Zvi Rimon had a recent article on the subject: A BRIEF summary
If fruits are grown in EY with the intent to export them then Maharsham
(1:72) wrote that they are exempt from terumot/maasrot and this is followed
by Rav Kook and Rav Yisraeli, Rav Isser Zalman Meltzer and Rav Ovadiah
Yosef. Chazon Ish, Achiezer and Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach were machmir.
CI paskened that in general one can make a copy of the wording of
separating T/M and then say that one takes out a little more than 1/100 and
it should be redeemed according to the nusach on the page or siddur onto a
coin. A coin worth 5 shekel should suffice for 50 times or its equivalent
in foreign money. (note Rav Kook disagrees but given the above disagreement
one can be lenient like CI) One then places the part separated into a bag
and disposes of them in the garbage.
He concludes that there is a special merit in eating fruits from Eretz
Yisrael. Bach says that since the fruits are influenced by the sanctity of
EY so their consumption is above normal.
Thus one should make the effort to buy Israeli produce and enjoy the merit
of eating the fruits of EY. Ideally one should separate terumot and
maaserot without a bracha as simply described above. Even if one doesn't
take terumot and maaserot there are lenient opinions that can be relied upon
--
Eli Turkel
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20190124/fd12f0f2/attachment-0001.html>

On Wed, Jan 16, 2019 at 08:01:39PM -0500, Zev Sero via Avodah wrote:
: On 16/1/19 7:53 am, Akiva Miller via Avodah wrote:
:>I do see that RZS pointed to "the end of the long teshuvah", but there
:>are*several* long teshuvos in the Igros Moshe about chalav yisrael.
:>Can someone please show me more precisely where RMF writes these
:>things?
: The series dealing with this issue, and gradually laying out RMF's
: unique shita, is YD2 46-49. But the real meat of the whole thing
: the lomdus that demonstrates what he believes is going on here, is
: #49. One can't understand or intelligently discuss his shita
: without it.
I didn't read the IM that way. You're pointing to his discussion of cheese
and butter, and why they don't need to be made of chalav yisrael; wouldn't
the milk had been assur already before it was turned into something else?
So he answers that the issur of chalav aku"m isn't chal until it is
owned by a Jew.
Not that the necessary re'iyah, or as RMF would put it, "re'iyah"
(in quotes), applies at any time after milking.
IOW, RMF's shitah appears to be that milk that was not observed during
milking isn't assur until owned by a Jew. And therefore, if turned into
something else before a Jew acquires it, no issur would be chal.
Gut Voch!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger "I hear, then I forget; I see, then I remember;
mi...@aishdas.org I do, then I understand." - Confucius
http://www.aishdas.org "Hearing doesn't compare to seeing." - Mechilta
Fax: (270) 514-1507 "We will do and we will listen." - Israelites

On 26/1/19 11:33 pm, Micha Berger via Avodah wrote:
> I didn't read the IM that way. You're pointing to his discussion of cheese
> and butter, and why they don't need to be made of chalav yisrael; wouldn't
> the milk had been assur already before it was turned into something else?
> So he answers that the issur of chalav aku"m isn't chal until it is
> owned by a Jew.
> Not that the necessary re'iyah, or as RMF would put it, "re'iyah"
> (in quotes), applies at any time after milking.
> IOW, RMF's shitah appears to be that milk that was not observed during
> milking isn't assur until owned by a Jew. And therefore, if turned into
> something else before a Jew acquires it, no issur would be chal.
You've forgotten the whole point of the teshuvah, and why he brings up
cheese & butter at all. The question he's answering is how the "re'iya"
at the company helps, when the company buys its milk from farms, and he
explicitly says that there is no "re'iya" at nochri farms and that it's
forbidden to buy milk there. So how can we buy from the companies?
He uses the examples of cheese & butter to prove (1) that the issur
is chal only when it comes leyad yisroel, and (2) that if there is no
cheshash about the last nochri, who made the cheese or butter, then
we don't care that he bought the milk from a nochri about whom there
is a cheshash. We only care about the "akum sheni", not about the
"akum rishon".
From this he concludes that we don't need "re'iya" at the farm that
produces the milk, since the farmer sells it not to a yisroel but to
the nochri-owned company, and we buy it from the company where we have
"re'iya" that it didn't do anything.
It follows inevitably that if the company sold the milk to an "akum
shlishi" then our need for "re'iya" must apply only to him. And since
it comes to his hands in tamper-proof containers, our "re'iya" with him
is much stronger than our "re'iya" with the company. Therefore leshitas
RMF, we no longer need to rely on any kind of inspection or on any need
to buy people's silence. We know for certain that the nochri retailer
did nothing to the milk, just as we know he did nothing to the packaged
kosher meat we may also buy from him. And what happened at the plant
can't be more relevant than what happened at the farm.
(BTW even in this teshuvah RMF remains under the impression that most
of a company's milk comes from its own cows, and it only supplements
with purchases from farmers. As far as I know this has never been the
metzius, and is not now. Milk is produced by farms and sold to processing
companies or co-ops.
Also RMF seems to assume that at the plants the inspectors are either
there constantly or come very frequently, whereas at farms they come
rarely. I don't know whether the first assumption is correct but I can
confirm the second. State inspectors come maybe three times a year. On
the other hand the farm workers know that they may come at any time,
even in the middle of the night, and are definitely mirsesi from that
possibility even though it rarely happens, whereas RMF assumes they
are not.)
--
Zev Sero A prosperous and healthy 5779 to all
z...@sero.name Seek Jerusalem's peace; may all who love you prosper

<< Rav Ashi's Sanhedrin closes in 391 or '2. Rav Ashi passes in 422.
Ravina bar Huna (the probable Ravina meant when R' Ashi is named first,
as in "Rav Ashi veRavina sof hora'ah") was niftar in 474 or '5. >>
why would Rav Ashi's sanhedrin close 30 years before his death?
Acording to this Ravina was not a contemporary of Rav Ashi
Actually there were at least 3 people with the name of Ravina. One in the
days
of Rava, one in the days of Rav Ashi and one in the days of the Saboraim
--
Eli Turkel
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20190128/becf9db7/attachment-0001.html>

On 28/1/19 5:42 am, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
> << Rav Ashi's Sanhedrin closes in 391 or '2. Rav Ashi passes in 422.
Rav Ashi was in Bavel, wasn't he? So how did he have a sanhedrin there?
Especially since AIUI the official Sanhedrin in EY didn't close until
about 415?
Possibly relevant: there's supposedly a grave of R Ashi on the
Israel-Lebanon border, which implies (if genuine) that at some point
after his Bavli activity he moved to EY.
--
Zev Sero A prosperous and healthy 5779 to all
z...@sero.name Seek Jerusalem's peace; may all who love you prosper

On Mon, Jan 28, 2019 at 12:42:25PM +0200, Eli Turkel via Avodah wrote:
: why would Rav Ashi's sanhedrin close 30 years before his death?
This assumes that R' Ashi's Sanhedrin even was a real Sanhedrin (as
the Rambam assumes) and that Hillel Nesi'ah's Sanhedrin wasn't the last
one (as is often assumed in discussions of our calendar) closing in 385.
According to tradition R Ashi was RY in Sura for 60 years. Historically,
the numbers seem to add up to 52. But according to this tradition, in
the first 30 yarchos kalla they produced the mesechtos of the Bavli,
and in the second 30 they chazered and honed them. If the Sanhedrin
collapsed (eg lack of eligible members, in-fighting, or whatever),
it explains where there aren't 31 mesechtos.
But in any case, the idea that the last 30 years were spent on chazarah
of the Bavli's 30 mesechtos is the reason for that gap.
: Acording to this Ravina was not a contemporary of Rav Ashi
: Actually there were at least 3 people with the name of Ravina. One in the
: days
: of Rava, one in the days of Rav Ashi and one in the days of the Saboraim
This would explain why the Rambam breaks with the norm and writes R'
Ashi first "R Ashi veRavina sof hora'ah". Also, Mar bar Rav Ashi appears
by "name" (Mar?) in shas too often to be the first of the savora'im.
No problems -- if we mean the 3rd Ravina.
Tir'u baTov!
-Micha
--
Micha Berger It's never too late
mi...@aishdas.org to become the person
http://www.aishdas.org you might have been.
Fax: (270) 514-1507 - George Eliot

From https://goo.gl/VyQGmj
A bird so strange that, more than 150 years after Jewish authorities first began discussing it, nobody can decide whether it's kosher today.
Domestic ducks are kosher, though duck is not a particularly common protein
on the Jewish table (except perhaps in Sephardic, or Mediterranean,
families). But the Muscovy was so weird that Rabbi Illowy, upon moving to
New Orleans and finding it eaten there, immediately declared it off-limits.
New Orleans Jews were familiar with the Muscovy, and told the new rabbi
that there was indeed a history of eating this bird, therefore making it
kosher, but Illowy arbitrarily declared, according to Kashrut.com<http://www.kashrut.com/articles/ThreeBirds/#sdfootnote25anc>,
that he doubted the expertise of the rabbis who had allowed the eating of
the Muscovy in the past.
The Muscovy duck never became nearly as popular as the mallard in the U.S.,
but bizarrely enough, it is very popular in, of all places, Israel. A
scholarly paper from late 2010<http://www.hakirah.org/Vol%2011%20Zivotofsky.pdf>
from Zohar Amar and Ari Z. Zivotofsky documents its wide acceptance there.
The duck was fairly common in Israel by the late 19th century and was never
really considered anything but a kosher duck there. In fact, in early
2010<http://failedmessiah.typepad.com/failed_messiahcom/2010/02/satmar-poultry-slaughterhouse-duck-recall-345.html>,
an Israeli duck farmer shipped, by accident, a huge shipment of Muscovy
ducks instead of mallards to kosher communities in the U.S., where the
shipment of strange alien-looking ducks was greeted with horror.
See the above URL for more.
YL
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20190128/71ba1827/attachment.html>
------------------------------
_______________________________________________
Avodah mailing list
Avo...@lists.aishdas.org
http://www.aishdas.org/lists/avodahhttp://lists.aishdas.org/listinfo.cgi/avodah-aishdas.org
------------------------------
*************************************
Send Avodah mailing list submissions to
avodah@lists.aishdas.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
http://www.aishdas.org/lists/avodah/avodahareivim-membership-agreement/
You can reach the person managing the list at
avodah-owner@lists.aishdas.org
When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Avodah digest..."
A list of common acronyms is available at
http://www.aishdas.org/lists/avodah/avodah-acronyms
(They are also visible in the web archive copy of each digest.)